


Shrine meeting

by Livvy_london



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Deity Au, Gen, Middle School, OC character - Freeform, Own Au, The oc is only mentioned a little bit, hinata is a god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-25 00:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12519232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livvy_london/pseuds/Livvy_london
Summary: As Kageyama struggles through his last year at kitagawa daiichi, he comes across a well-kept shrine the middle of miyagi's forests tended by a mysterious kimono-wearing shrine keeper.





	Shrine meeting

kageyama tobio, 3rd year junior high student and what felt like the sole member of his school volleyball team. He shot a tired and sleepless glare towards the other members of his household as he downed his glass of milk, roughly snatching a slice of buttered toast from the table and clenching his freshly cleaned volleyball shirt in the other hand. Tugging on his school jersey, a glance at the shirt burned its dark blue and bold white 2 into him and kageyama frowned. He slung the duffel bag over one shoulder and mounted his bicycle, soon rounding the 4th turn of a dozen. He prepared to arrive at the school to set up the equipment, without his team, who rarely arrived to practice early in the morning . especially with the final tournament of the year coming up in a couple short weeks. those lazy worthless assholes, they never tried to getter better as he did.  
As he pedaled forward towards kitagawa daiichi, kageyamas hands clenched to handle bars until they squeaked under the strain of his grip and his vision clouded into a haze. This ultimately led him careening off the road, too distracted by his rage to notice the twist  
He tumbled end over end, a tangle of arms and legs, sharply down the slope that led towards the more heavily wooded area, the strap tugging painfully at his neck, his knees scratched by twigs and this arm battered by the fall. Eventually he slowed and the slope diminished, skidding the final few feet on the rough ground. With a thud, kageyama’s bike, now a twisted metal frame, did the same.  
Kageyama pulled himself out of his heap after a few moments of shock and readjusted his bag before he pulled himself wearily to his feet.  
A quick look back confirmed he shouldn’t even try to climb back up and he began walking, wobbling slightly. His mind still tumbled and as the shock began to slowly faded, the surprise shifted to after-adrenaline tiredness.

His shaky feet brought him stumbling out of the bushes and tripping into a clearing. Lifting his eyes he was greeted by a cat looking lazily into his eyes. With a yelp, kageyama leaped back but a blink of his eyes revealed that the cat was merely a bronze statue, a metal shrine guardian. It rested its head on two paws with half-closed eyes and seemed well polished except some dark stains - moss growth probably.  
Reaching to the statue’s base he picked lightly at the weeds growing there and beneath his hands revealed a line of kanji, etched deep into the stone. They swam in front of his bleary eyes but he concentrated of the first.  
“Nichi… and kou? No, hi… nata. Hinata, sunny place? No, a family name.” Kageyama spoke out loud trying to pick the words out from the sentence. His eyes spotted the familiar “shrine” further along the lines and he nodded slightly to himself.  
Fishing the first pen he could find in his bag he noted down the words in neat strokes. He wiped a finger lightly over the letters and surprised at the lack of ink on them, checked the pen. Permanent ink.  
With a sigh on his part, Kageyama's eyes were pulled away from the curiosity of the statue to the larger mystery behind.  
It was a wooden shrine a few feet taller than him - well maintained from the swept boards, fresh incense sticks and the freshly folded shide hanging between the beams, despite its depth in the woods and the impossibility of anyone bothering to trek so far. A few steps led up to the raised wooden grate and a large bell hung down from the rafters. Leaning heavily over the grate, kageyama pulled a penny from his jersey pocket, tossing it in, clanging the bell noisily and mumbling a prayer before falling asleep against one of the beams.  
It was only a short nap after that kageyama awoke to the whistling wind and he thought to check his watch. Practice time was ending, with the other players no doubt relieved that he would not push them to try harder, (he still had lunch time and after school, he reminded himself) and it would soon be time to start class. He needed to get to the school quickly except… he had no idea which way to go. He looked back at the shrine as he descended the steps, glancing especially at the wooden grate with a wish that hadn't wasted his only prayer on safe rest instead of guidance out of the woods.  
He heard a snap not far behind him and his head whipped around to zone in on the source, a person standing in the shadow of a tree. They could help him out-

“Hey… hey! You!” The short figure seemed to angle slightly towards him as if they had heard him. A pale eye-cover fluttered, the curtain shielding their eyes, labelled ‘light’ with broad strokes and he noticed a small smile on their lips before they then disappeared behind the trunk. Kageyama jumped forward to chase after them but rounding the tree trunk, they had disappeared. Until he looked ahead to spot them, their back facing him. They were dressed in a loosely-fitted - evident from the collar drooping far down past their nape - purple kimono adorned in multides of colourful spots that Kageyama could not make out and shifted in the light. A short girl… the shrine maiden? He thought back to his first year festival and temple visit with his class, weren't they a little more neatly dressed than this?  
Her hair was a little out of the norm too, short orange curls sticking up in all directions like bright fireworks.  
He took a few steps forward and the lithe girl took off, one hand clutching the trails of her kimono and he jumped after her. “Hey wait! Come on! Could you help me out of this forest?” He yelled between breaths but she didn't stop.  
After a few minutes he hadn't gained a metre on the retreating form and while he wasn't running out of stamina yet, her dodging sidesteps annoyed him and he began to growl under his breath. One more turn round the bushes and he sprinted forward in a final effort to reach out -”oi!”- But she has disappeared once more and this time with no trace.

Kageyama was about to let out a heavy sigh when he heard laughing voices in the near distance to the left. He turned, quickening his pace until he burst out onto the street were his fellow students walked.  
“Hey… this is the street just next to school..” a few girls whispered and giggled, eying his sudden appearance and kageyama huffed. He dusted off his trousers and untangled leaves from his hair before smoothing it down then briskly trotted towards the school building and tried to push thoughts of that girl from the back of his mind.

~

Five weeks older but no more mature, Kageyama bolted, feet flying between the tree roots.  
He didn't want to face them, didn't want to face the court, the coach, not after that failure of a tournament. No it wasn't his school's failure, not his either, it was his teams and their forceful rejection of him from the court - the king of the court. That didn't sit right in his mind as he stumbled forward  
Unfamiliar salt stung his eyes as he thought - maybe if he got there faster, fast enough, then he'd feel better, sit on those steps again and sleep until his worries vanished away.  
Entering the clearing was not unlike the first time, and the view was not different either. Breathing shakily, kageyama noticed the fallen leaves in a heap nestled behind the guardian, swept hurriedly but not disposed of. The incense had once again been cleared and replaced but walking up the stairs, he saw a few flakes of the worn paint drift off and the panels bent slightly under his weight. In fact, glancing into the wish box he could spot his coin in the same place as it had been left several weeks ago despite other shrines he knew regularly emptied these boxes for funds.  
Tempted as he was to reach in (he was certain an arm as skinny as his could wriggle through) and pick up the coin to cast another wish, he instead slid down the column and rested his head back against the creaky wood.

He took a few shaky breaths and his eye-lids seemed dark pink and sore. A cool gentle finger brushed under each eye to soothe them and kageyama's eyes snapped open.  
It is was the girl who he remembered had led him out the woods not so long ago though her face seemed a little more angular and the eyes squarish without the mask that had obscured her eyes before. She grinned a sparkling white smile and sat back on her haunches, letting him straighten himself against the post. Kageyama shot a cautious look to the girl who just smiled bouncing back to give him space. He shuffled towards the steps and hung his legs over the edge. He scanned the girl's body looking at the kimono with a mixture of confusion and amazement. It was clearly far too large for her, collar drooping downwards and the trail extending far past her bare feet, and the obi was tied haphazardly around the waist with a messy bow. However it was absolutely gorgeous. The purple light purple base colour was almost crowded with flowers, beautiful reds, yellows and oranges that matched her hair. Birds sat nestled among nests in the branches and by the light glinting off the silken material Kageyama swore he saw one green crested bird ruffle its feathers.  
The curly haired ginger only stared back curiously as the raven-haired teen studied the shorter’s clothes.  
Kageyama noticed the look and quickly changed focus on the eyes as he thought of what to say in the ever-increasingly awkward silence.  
“So.. what's your name?” Real smooth Tobio.  
“I'm Hinata.” 

He had expected a high girly pitch much like the girls in his class but it was anything but. While the intonation was stilted as if from lack of practice, it had a smooth calming tone and was distinctly male.  
Kageyama’s jaw moved silently as his mind whirred. To say he was surprised would be an understatement.  
“You're male?” He stuttered out and Hinata tilted his head like a puppy.  
“Yeah, I'm a dude. What made you think otherwise?” He replied flashing a smile.

Kageyama snuck a glance between the folds of his loose-fitting kimono and quickly looked away. Sure seemed like a dude.  
“Well… why do you wear a kimono if you're a guy?” He asked, face tinged a little red in embarrassment.  
“Oh,” Hinata replied simply. “It's my mother’s. She's always away dealing with my older brothers and sisters but she left me this kimono for when she visits. It's so beautiful and it's a waste as she never comes so I just decided to wear it. Of course I never learnt to put it on properly but its comfortable like this. He leaned back sighing in he sunlight, legs wide and the kimono dropping down, exposed a length of creamy white skin on his leg.

“But tell me Kageyama-san, what's the matter? Why were you crying?”  
“This year, well I love volleyball and.. my teammates rejected me in my last game. They won't listen and they missed the ball on purpose and I got benched during the tournament and we came second.. it's been like this since third grade and next year will be just the same-”  
“I don't believe that. I think in your new school and its team, you’ll discover someone who will become very important to you.  
“I'm sure if you’ll listen to each other and work together you can both accomplish everything you want to.”  
“Really?” Kageyama asked, praying he didn't look too hopeful.  
“Yes. But don't forget you’ll have to put in some effort to listen and not forget what I tell you or your time in Karasuno will be far tougher than it needs to be.”  
Kageyama let out a preoccupied sigh at the words ‘to listen’, “How will I know who this person is? And, what are they going to do to help so much?”  
“You’ll know it you see them, I'm sure. You wished for safe and calm did you not?” The shrine-squier grinned, the cute smile playing across his face.  
The child nimbly leapt up from the stairs not letting the teen say a word in reply, feet padding on stone as he skipped towards the side of the shrine.  
“Gotta get my broom Kageyama, got some sweeping to do. Don't forget to visit me another day after your practice at kitagawa.”

As Kageyama stood and took a few steps away from the shrine he realised the boy he had spoken to had known his name and his school without a mention of it and he turned to yell back but the kimono-wearing boy had completely disappeared, no sign of him in or outside the shrine.  
Turning back, he noticed something strange on his hand. It was the text he had written so many weeks ago and hasn't even spared the slightest glance. While still in the light of the clearing, he snapped a picture of it with his phone and messaged a little note to a clever upperclassman he hadn't talked to in a while before tagging on a little request for translation.

Preparation for the next term was a strange concoction of scribbling meaningless study notes, tossing the volleyball for hours to his old dog who would stare at it with bored eyes every time it thumped close and day-dreaming back to his meeting with.. with.. that person. Each thought back became more faded and kageyama grew more irritated each time his mind wandered back to it - once even missing the ball and painfully smacking himself in the nose with it.  
This put him in a particularly sour on the first day of the new year. Kageyama began the term with his usual early visit to the new gymnasium, fishing a volleyball out of the basket to throw to himself - a little more cautiously this time. Yet, when a vaguely familiar grade schooler - sorry, fellow first-year, leaped through the door voice loud, excitable even and pointing wildly at him, kageyama’s attention turning to bumbling clumsy idiot flailing across his court. He thought he might have recognised him from the short opening game last term, with his impressive jump that launched his small frame far across the court, or perhaps even more recently than that. Continuing to shout and leap across the court, the kid caused Kageyama to round on him, irritated.  
With his fury and argument with that orange haired shrimp, kageyama lost his last thought of that person in the back of his mind and completely missed his phone buzzing back from that message he had sent far before the holiday. First an apology for absence, a complaint about the picture quality then-  
From Genichiro-san:  
To TobiWan:  
As for the translation here's what I got - “Hinata shrine. Kami of care and guidance.”.  
Oh, little bro says one of his friends’ called Hinata and I think he said he's going to Karasuno. That's where you're going, right?

~~~~~

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry guys if this seems really terribly written. Im pretty good at concepts and plot points but i have absolutely no talent for stringing them together - it can end up quite rambley and over-sophisticated like a kid who just found a thesaurus.. well hope you liked it as my meant-to-be first story here.
> 
> Note: a while before I published this I made some slightly underwhelming but well-intentioned sketches showing my ideas for the kimono. The design changed slightly while writing but they’re still available to see if you’d like:  
> https://improvsketch.tumblr.com/post/162567255494/page-12-posted-030717-eh-sorry-i-skipped-a  
> https://improvsketch.tumblr.com/post/162607072735/page-13-posted-040717-see-you-soon  
> https://improvsketch.tumblr.com/post/162945015873/page-20-posted-130717-i-ran-out-of-steam-after


End file.
